Not suggesting LR needs to decode Photoshop's complex layers. But LR could at a minimum show the file exists and perhaps Photoshop could put a composite file in the Unmaximized file to let LR present an image of what's in the file. I thought that what was what maximize did, but it shouldn;t take 100+MB to do so.

Right now maximized is 200+ MB, Unmazimized is 89MB. I'll settle for 90MB with a 1MB composite image. I would not expect LR to be able to make changes to the file.

A more imaginative request that will likely occur sooner and be more useful but still allow for accomplishing what you want would be to request an Import Plugin Framework for Lightroom or an Import Photoshop Action where a Photoshop droplet could be invoked to, in this case, add a composite layer to each incoming PSD. It would keep the bulk of Photoshop's processing out of LR, itself, but make it available to people who needed it. Right now droplets and plug-ins are only part of Ligthroom's Export processing.

Is there a reason you're insisting on Adobe adding a feature to LR instead of using existing features of Photoshop in your workflow to accomplish the same thing?

>Since TIFFs hold what PSDs with maximize on hold, maybe you could use TIFFs instead, and use one of the compression options. I don't know.

Exactly. That’s why I never use PSD and always TIFF. There’s nothing PSD provides, other than duotone support that TIFF doesn’t as far as I know. Add Zip compression, the files are smaller albeit slower to open and save. TIFF is an open format, vastly more compatible in other applications. PSD is a proprietary format. Why use PSD?

Just to make sure, what is an Un-maximized PSD? I assumed you meant a PSD saved without Maximize Compatibility turned on, right? To make LR see it you just turn on maximize compatibility when you save it. There is a preference to always, never or ask about this when you saev. Do you not know how to do this or have you decided you don't want to do this, or does it not work when you try it?

What are the dimensions in Pixels of the PSD? Do you need the PSD to work on in Photoshop after you edit a copy in LR, or is it just a stage in your workflow that isn't optimal, yet, and Photoshop won't need to see it, anymore after LR sees it?

Partly, if you deliberately chose not to maximise compatibility, you shouldn't be too disappointed to discover that it means what it says on the tin - however LR is branded.

However, that is a bit brutal and I agree it is right to expect to be able to import particularly these PSD files. Regardless of whether LR can display a thumbnail or preview, users expect LR to help them manage picture files.

In the interim, how many files are involved? Wouldn't it be best to (a) convert them to TIFs with an action/droplet and (b) get more disc space?

One workaround that does work, is to save the file maximized, let LR read the file, then save it unmaximized. LR now complains it can't read the file, but at least it displays the (maximized) image and lets one access the file.

Today, I just installed LR for the first time and I was completely taken off-guard that LR cannot read PSDs to display a preview or even add them to a catalog. I am 100% in Mike's corner regarding the Maximize Compatibility option -- don't want it, don't need it. And, given the number of legacy PSDs that I have, the notion of re-saving them all with MaxComp invoked or as Tiffs is not a work-around I intend to employ.

This is close to being a deal breaker.

Bridge has always had this functionality and it seems ludicrous that LR does not. There is surely some way to add this feature without bloating LR. Given that my CS5 folder is nearly 400mb and my LR folder is 50mb, tripling LR's size as was suggested might happen would be nothing compared to adding the MaxComp bloat to every PSD file.

Make it an add-on that can be downloaded by those of us who don't mind incurring a one time disk-space penalty to have LR behave as it should have in the first place.

Well, for the sake of my edification, if I *do* decide to go the tiff route -- at least from this point forward -- is LZW compression reliable? I seem to remember having file corruption with LZW encoded tiffs in the long ago past, so I'm a little leery. I've toyed with the ZIP option and, sure, it makes smaller files but it's so freakin' slow.

Adobe should either support un-maximized psd files or take Photoshop out of the name! Maybe it should be renamed "TIFF Lightroom"? Bridge can read un-maximized psd files, so it is outrageous that Photoshop can't.

All this speculation about the size of Lightroom ballooning to fully support un-maximized files is also silly; the Bridge executable is only 12MB, so why would Lightroom gain much weight?

While I appreciate all the band-aide solutions offered here, they are NOT viable solutions. They a) waste incredible amounts of disk space and b) waste a lot of time reading and writing the huge disk files. (Every save takes 5 times longer!)

For one (and I suspect many other reasons), it would have to have support for layers, their opacity, blend modes and all the stuff in Photoshop to show you this data. Huge engineering when a solution exists that not only allows you to see the compounded effect of the layers, it allows tons of other applications to do so as well (the rendered embedded TIFF data).

Bottom line is, you have to use the compatibility option, it aint going to change anytime soon if at all.

"The engineering's already done - just copy it from Bridge! Do you speak for Adobe on "it ain't gonna change"? "

They aren't even written in the same language.

Look, here's why I think this is unlikely to be implemented. First, it's been like this since version 1 with very little complaining. Second, there are two very simple and straight-forward workarounds already (maximize and tiff). Finally, take a look at this thread. It's been around for a couple of months and it has three votes for it. Look at the "popular" page. The last one on the first page has 19 votes. This indicates to me that not a lot of people care about this feature request, likely because the workaround is so straightforward, especially now with gigabytes of hard drive storage down to 5 cents a piece.

Lightroom makes processing large numbers of images at least an order of magnitude more efficient than using PS for the same thing. Given its relatively low cost (compared to CS) and that very large return on that investment, many photographers have adopted it for handling large numbers of images. Many of us, myself included, don't even own PS (I have Elements for those very few images that I can't deal with entirely in Lightroom). For those very few images, I save them in TIFF. For those legacy images, I saved them with maximize on. No big deal and they are all editable in Lightroom.

Mike, I'm still on your (our) side here. Given that LR can't do anything with layered files, I suppose it seems logical to the propeller heads at Adobe to have it (nearly) ignore PSDs altogether. In fact, I read recently that initially there was not going to be any support in LR for PSDs at all. I guess something is better than nothing, but not by much.

So, being a LR newb, I'm trying to figure out how to modify my workflow to take advantage of LR's strengths but, in the meantime, I'm still not sold on the idea of converting all my legacy PSDs to tiffs just to make LR happy. For that matter, I'm not yet really sold on LR.

It just seems silly to me that one Adobe product cannot read another Dobe product's files properly. The requirement for maximized compatibility seems like LR is crippled in its ability to PSD's to me. Adobe has the code that reads a normal PSD and it should be fairly trivial to put that code into LR.

First of all, no it cannot. It needs "maximized compatibility", which seems silly to need for another up-to-date Adobe product. Such a function seems more like something for legacy applications, like older versions of Photoshop.

Why not TIFF: because when using PSD, exporting to TIFF is yet another file to manage. And compared to PSD, TIFF is "lossy" becasue it cannot contain all the things a PSD can (so not lossy pixels, but still lossy as in loss of information).

Not choosing "Maximize compatibility" means not properly saved, and Photoshop's dialog box does provide a very clear indication of the likely results in other apps.

It's "fairly trivial" to read the embedded preview which "Maximize compatibility" adds to the PSD, and that's what LR and other 3rd party apps use. It's not so trivial to include Photoshop's rendering engine and can't be a high priority to cater for folk who have deliberately chosen a suboptimal method of saving files.

Your best bet is to write an action to convert PSDs to layered TIFs. TIF is the equivalent of PSD - with the minor exception of not supporting duotone mode images.

In two years, this topic has received 3 votes. That probably tells Adobe they don't need to waste the engineering time to reverse engineer the PS engine into Lightroom just to satisfy a few.

Some additional research in to Tiff vs. PSD on your parts, is probably in order. The functionality you perceive you are losing is so miniscule that the benefits of Tiff dwarf them by comparison. I have never met anyone who wished they hadn't converted over to TIFF but I have met plenty who lament having stayed (or converted) to PSD.

It's foolish to use PSD, end of story. It doesn't provide anything useful as discussed, it's proprietary, it's far less supported on other applications. There's no reason for Adobe to waste engineering time and resources so yes, good luck in getting this requested implemented. I suspect that if you asked most Adobe engineers if they would personally prefer PSD to go away, they would say yes.

On top of that, like I've said a million times, TIFF doesn't work properly in each application that claims to be able to read it. Those programs almost always only read the first/top layer, and don't apply any of the effects that you could do in Photoshop, like adjustment layers. I seriously doubt that any program capable of reading TIFF would go and implement all of this. It's too much work and TIFF is almost never used like that anyway.

All this makes TIFF certainly usable, but it also makes for faux compatibility. Which is useful if your files remain inside the realm of Adobe. Anywhere outside it and they become unreadable and write-only.

Therefor, PSD. At least PSD is unsupported or supported. Never anywhere in between.

And if TIFF is so equivalent to PSD, like (as well) I've said a billion times before: implementing it in Lightroom should be trivial, if it already supports TIFF to its full extend as you so claim (which I seriously doubt - so prove it).

>>On top of that, like I've said a million times, TIFF doesn't work roperly in each application that claims to be able to read it. Those programs almost almways only read the first/top layer, and don't apply any of the effects that you could do in Photoshop, like adjustment layers.<<

I don't know that you get it. Layers, in TIFF or PSD are proprietary Adobe data. If you are worried about access to that data in an Adobe app, either will work the same (san's Dutone support). OUTSIDE Adobe app's, TIFF or PSD, the layer proprietary data isn't available. That's why we need a flattened version! Outside Adobe app's, TIFF is vastly more supported than PSD, and both will only provide a flattened version of the proprietary layer data for editing.

Wrong again. GIMP can read layers. And I'm sure there are other program that can. So now you're claiming Adobe is the only one capable of reading layers at all. This couldn't be further from the truth.

My point was that programs reading TIFF cannot read layers at all, making save-as-TIFF completely nonsense for anything but Photoshop.

If layers are 100% proprietary data, then the argument for TIFF fails again, because a PSD is 100% proprietary by itself. Interoperability can easily be achieved by exporting to PNG, since the file is going to be meant to be read only anyway.

What background do you have in using this software? Anyone heavily in editing as derivatives of TIFs, the last thing anyone wants to do is mistake a layered source file for a flat file.

How are you supposed to distinguish a Flat TIF from a layered TIF????
A little color change if it were wouldn't be enough. it needs a new icon and extension. Is PSD slow? Yes, but it IS the standard of how and what photoshop is based on. Maybe PSB should be the new engine for PSD, and have that transition, but why would you associate TIF with PSD?

And Yes, last time I checked PSD is VERY key for Lightroom users. The reason why there are low votes is that many people don't get active about it. I'm surprised how you're being so COUNTER active. Whats your gain?

Its annoying enough that when you open a file from LR(defaults to a TIF format), you have to resync the folder to see it back in LR if you saved it in PSD, which is 90% of the time. If you wanted to work flat, you really have little reason for it to launch into Photoshop in the first place! Someone has got it screwing back there, and just lazy to fix it.

This would make managing files very difficult.
I have used Adobe before it was called Photoshop. The only reason in the past 20 years I have come to the forum to voice something is with LR limitations. There have been numerous things we just except and not post about it. LR is now at the point of annoying with the limitations. If Adobe took things at face value, they wouldn't be the application they are today.

So you suppose I should go through 10TB of image data to rename the ones with layers? The file names as they are are too long. When there are visual instant response ques like icons to distinguish files, you want to sit there and read??? Sounds like you need a good book to check out from your local library using index cards to look up some titles and info.

If the content is the same, and they don't sound like they are, and if there was a CLEAR way visually to distinguish a LAYER vs a FLAT TIF, maybe I would not care of the conversion. But there isn't. It should perhaps be called a CTF(complexTiff)? or something. This way you see it in the extension, you see the icon differnece and thats it.

>>So you suppose I should go through 10TB of image data to rename the ones with layers?

Yup (which isn't difficult with the right product), but at the very least, you could consider naming conventions in the future as a key to what the data contains and/or use the slew of metadata that's possible to embed into images. But back OT, a TIFF or PSD can have layers or not have layers. Doesn't change the needlessness of PSD when we have TIFF!